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G8 leaders feast on 13 courses after discussing world food shortages

Organisers of the G8 summit have proudly displayed the menu for a sumptuous eight-course banquet enjoyed by world leaders meeting to discuss international food shortages.

Only 24 hours after Gordon Brown urged people not to waste food, and with the summit dominated by fears of global shortages, leading statesmen were treated to smoked salmon and kyoto beef - hours after enjoying a five-course lunch.

Several African leaders were at the table as the need for their continent to double its food production ranked highly at the summit.

The lunch began with truffle soup and rare crab while the evening feast, involving 19 separate dishes, even had its own theme - grandly entitled "Hokkaido, Blessings of the Earth and the Sea".
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Organisers proudly boasted the chef's team "know everything that there is to know about food". They proclaimed: "The three specialists will make the best of Hokkaido's natural blessings, supported by higher quality ingredients, more natural ingredients and the soil with which to enjoy them."

The dishes were prepared by the first Japanese to win the famed one star of the Michelin guide Katsuhiro Nakamura.

He was hired as the "grand chef" by the Windsor Hotel where the leaders are staying. 30 miles away from the general public and cut off by 20,000 special police officers keeping crowds at bay, its Presidential Suite costs a staggering £7,000-a-night.

The Japanese air force was flying regular patrols overhead and even the coastguard was on standby on the island of Hokkaido.

Aides insist Mr Brown's warning to householders was not aimed at hectoring people, but he insisted ending food waste could save families £8 per week.

The G8 summit has cost £283million, which could have bought 100million mosquito nets to save Africans from catching malaria.

Shadow International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said: “The G8 have made a bad start to their Summit, with excessive cost and lavish consumption.

“Surely it is not unreasonable for each leader to give a guarantee that they will stand by their solemn pledges of three years ago at Gleneagles to help the world’s poor.

“All of us are watching, waiting and listening."

Those menus in full:

Lunch

White asparagus and truffle soup

Kegani crab almond oil foam and green olive tapenade

Supreme of chicken served with its stuffed thigh, nuts and orange savoury with beetroot foam

Special cheese selection with half-dried fruits

Peach compote, ice cream and raspberry coulis

Dinner

Corn-stuffed caviar

Smoked salmon and sea urching "pain surprise" style

Hot onion tart

Winter lily bulb and summer savoury

Folding fan modeled tray decorated with bamboo grasses

including

Kelp-flavoured cold kyoto beef shabu-shabu, asparagus dressed with sesame cream

Diced fatty fles of tuna fish, avocado and jellied soy sauce and Japanese herb "shiso"

Boiled clam, tomato, Japanese herb "shiso" in jellied clear soup of clam

Water shield and pickled conger dressed with vinegar soy sauce

Boiled prawn with jellied tosazu-vinegar

Grilled eel rolled around burdock strip

Sweet potato

Fried and seasoned Goby with soy sauce and sugar

Hairy Crab "Kegani" bisque soup

Salt-grilled bighand thornyhead with vinegary water pepper sauce

Milk fed lamb from "shiranuka" flavoured with aromatic herbs and mustard

Roasted lamb and cepes and black truffle with emulsion sauce of lamb's stock and pine seed oil

Special cheese selection, lavender honey and caramelised nuts

G8 fantasy dessert

Coffee served with candied fruits and vegetables

Wine list

le Reve grand cru champagne

japanese saki

Corton Charlemagne 2005

Chateau Latour burgundy

Ridge California Monte Bello 1997

Tokaji Essencia 1999 from Hungary